If you thought the weapon and movement bob in the recent FAS videos was to much, Hitman has some good news for you. "I believe there's a client-side cvar that can turn it off, or at least reduce it to whatever level you want," Hitman said on ModDB. FAS also has movement bob, but like weapon bob, it can be adjusted to a level you like, or turned off completely.

As you may have noticed that there are no death animations in the recent FAS videos. Rest assured, they are planed for future RC, but would be to much work for the first release unless they wanted to push the game back farther, according to DysPatch on ModDB.

When asked about the possibility of other bolt action sniper rifles in FAS, such as the SSG3000, Hitman said: Just because there's an M24 doesn't mean there can't or won't be any other bolt-actions. We're not limited to 32 weapons, and you shouldn't expect us to just stop at that point.

Hitman also stated that taking Firearms to the next level would mean a lot of guns.

The Capture Point is being updated steadily. mp!1HP has shown a new screen shot of the site layout, admin tool for TCP, and has a temporary url as well. Be sure to check out mp!1HP's thread in the FAS Forums if you would like to help at all with its construction or help admin it after it's launch.

Until the site is fully up an operational, mp!1HP is offering to create forum signatures, logos or wallpapers in this thread in the FAS OTF Art Forum.

The FAS team has released two videos of FAS with the arrival of the new batch of beta testers last Sunday. The new players are there to help test server stability, overall weapon balance and help find bugs before FAS's first release candidate. Since most of the work on FAS has most been bug fixing in the code and maps, instead of showing new renders and screen shots, the FAS team had recorded last Sunday's testing session and made some quick and dirty video clips of FAS as it stands now.

The first video is two minutes of Hitman with the MP5 and heavy armor in the tunnels and on the flag on tc_iwojima. Here you can see some of changes DysPatch has made to the tunnels of tc_iwojima to make it flow better, as well as the MP5 aim-point in action, the medic skill with its tool tip indicator showing who is bleeding and their health, and how the game plays in general.

The second video is a shot clip of tc_rubble showing off a brief clip of the M4 and M79 in action.

14 September 2009

The Capture Point, according to mp!1HP is "a website where FAS players can download the mod, skins, models, maps, sprites, etc." In addition, TCP will also provide "free sigs, clantemplates for FAS clans, and so on."

mp!1HP is looking for some help with setting up the site. Specifically, anyone who, "can help update the site...like uploading files [or] updating news." Also anyone who wants to put forth any extra work and help with the actual design of the site, or provide some signatures and templates is also encouraged to do.

If you have any ideas, suggestions or just want to help, you can PM mp!1HP here, or visit his form thread.

02 September 2009

Schmung has updated his developer's blog with information about the technical side of the design process as an artist for FAS. While there is a lot of big flashy stuff that makes the main page, such as his gorgeous M79 skin, other aspects of his work are not as appreciated. Prop models for example are necessary for FAS but don't attract as much attention as weapon models.

Prop models are models in maps such as the deuce and land rover. Much of Schmung's work lately has been with making level of detail models of many of these props. Level of Detail models are models that replace the more detailed models the farther you get away.

"The version you see up-close might be 7000 or so triangles," Schmung said but, "view it from a distance and what you are actually seeing is a model with 700 triangles." (Schmung made it a point that these numbers are made up to illustrate how LoD works.) This also applies to textures as well.

These level of detail models are for all models in FAS, not just models in maps. When you select a lower texture quality in a Source game, what you are doing is selecting the maximum level of detail of the textures. For example, "when you set your model and texture settings to low, typically you will only see the last LOD even if you are right next to it," DysPatch said.

Though while this system has obvious benefits for low end PCs, Naota points out that it isn't always a clear benefit. "We really could save a good 10-20% of our overall weapon texture footprint by doing away with these absurd view model mipmaps," Naota said. He continues with stating that his first person texture models do not have mipmaps because it saves a lot of disk space and it ensures that the texture will always look right.